The search for Malaysia's diving head coach continues

KUALA LUMPUR: The Podium Programme will continue to look for a national diving head coach to fill the void left by Yang Zhuliang but is not expecting to get a replacement any time soon.

Podium Programme director Tim Newenham said finding a world class coach suitable for the team will not be easy.

"The Podium Programme is a revolving door, there are always people who come on and people who come off due to the ever changing dynamics," said Newenham in Bukit Jalil yesterday.

"We always do reviews for our programmes roughly every six months and for diving we will do them after the Gold Coast Commonwealth and Indonesia Asian Games.

"We are looking for a new head coach... if we find that there is a potential candidate for head coach we will take an interest and have a discussion with them.

"However, there are very few people who can do that around the world and also very few who are available.

"They are so few that you cannot pick a country (from where they are from), it could be a mix of any country that has been successful in diving. It is about keeping our eyes open."

Newenham added that he is happy with the combination of Zhang Yukun, who has been named as interim head coach, and newly hired Australian Christian Brooker, who will assist Yukun.

"Considering how few top level coaches there are, we are actually quite happy with the setup we have. I think we have a winning formula with the coaches (Yukun, Brooker) we have.

"It made sense to make Yukun, who has been with us for a few years, acting head coach as we wanted to maintain the positives from the past while bringing in Brooker to introduce more sports science practices.

"It was a collective decision which we made together with the Amateur Swimming Union of Malaysia (ASUM)."

Former national head coach Yang Zhuliang's contract was not renewed at the end of last year following various allegations against him.